ABSTRACT
Few aspects of Afro-American history have aroused such intense debate as the character of the black family. For generations scholars have held that the most crippling effect of slavery was its destruction of family life. They have argued that slavery emasculated the black male by depriving him of his role as breadwinner and displacing family authority onto the white master; that it subjected the black female to sexual and economic exploitation; and that it perpetuated, by the threat of separation by sale, a sense of family impermanence. Slavery created an unstable family life with the mother as the central figure and, after emancipation, placed the black family in a disadvantageous position for competing with whites. Slavery, this traditional argument held, was the major reason for the continuation of black poverty in the urban ghetto. And because of poverty, the pattern of matriarchy continued to exist, since black males responded to menial work and job insecurity by deserting their families. Thus in cities the low status of blacks was rooted in family instability. 1
